Many to thank for economic development | News, Sports, Jobs

It has thrilled us to read recent stories by News staff writer Steve Schulwitz about major economic development efforts in the works in Alpena.

Among the pending projects: a Starbucks, a Marshalls department store, an Aldi grocery store, and a Marriott hotel.

Those projects could not only add dozens of jobs to our city, but also could increase the quality of life for residents and attract more tourists to our fair city. And development tends to build on top of development — meaning that, if those pending projects succeed, we could see more such investments in our future.

We have many people to thank for that good news.

Of course, we have folks like Mike Mahler at Target Alpena and others who work directly with developers to entice them to invest in our region. And, of course, we have the developers themselves, for considering spending major money to make our community a more interesting place.

But we…